An Ubuntu Adventure: Installing DELL’s Patches

I left you on the previous chapter installing Ubuntu 10.10 image available for download from DELL’s website. There is also another bunch of files that you can install. The two that seemed to me most relevant are:

Realtek Driver – to provide SD Card support

Quanta Driver – to enable the display switch key.

But that will need to wait until the basic image is installed! And that is what happened about 30 minutes later.

The install completed without any problems, I rebooted the system and Ubuntu took me through the initialisation process. It looks like Unity is loaded and running well, I have also connected to my home wireless LAN without a glitch.

Time to check what is working!

Let me list the basic stuff that works:

Audio speakers and jack are working fine. The system auto mutes when you plug the jack

Mic (internal and external) seems to work too

Wifi and Ethernet works well

Web cam is working with Cheese

Suspends and Hibernate works ok

Bluetooth scan finds devices

Here is what doesn’t work:

SD card is not recognised

External monitor display works only if I select it manually via the “monitors” application

Well this was kind of expected as they both have additional fixes provided from the DELL website. Time to install those!

Guess what? They worked!

To install the Realtek sd card driver you need to download and run a dkms package. Installing the dkms package was pretty simple by following DELL’s instructions: